Wild, Wild, Wildcards!!

With just over a week to go in the Major League regular season the term “Playoff Race” looks to only come up thanks to the addition of the Wildcard spots. With the 8 straight wins by the Red Sox, it looks like the Division races are pretty much locked up. The Red Sox have the smallest division lead with a 5½ game lead over Toronto and 7 games over Baltimore with 9 games to play. The Cubs have already locked up the NL Central and the others could be done by the end of the weekend or early Next week. Cleveland leads the AL Central by 7, Texas has a 9 game lead in the AL West, Washington is up 8½ over the Mets in the NL East and the Dodgers now lead San Francisco by 6 in the NL West. Just because the divisions are pretty much locked up, that doesn’t mean we don’t have some exciting baseball coming up in the next 10 days. Let’s take a look at the Wildcard races and also the current Odds to win the World Series

Lets start things in the National League. Things are a little less confusing there. Currently the NY Mets and San Francisco hold the 2 Wildcard spots. The St Louis Cardinals are just a half game back. Though the odds aren’t good, Pittsburgh is 4½ games back and Miami is 5. So how do these team’s schedules match-up.

Looking at the schedule you would think that the advantage would go to San Francisco and St Louis with the majority of their games at home and the Mets on the road for most. The one thing is if you take a look at the Cardinals, you would see they would rather be on the road then at Busch Stadium. St Louis’ 47-31 road record is the best in baseball by 3 games but they are just 33-41 at home. There are only 4 teams in baseball with a worse home record.

Though the National League looks truly like a 3 horse race for the 2 Wildcard spots. The American League Wildcard is going to be just that, WILD!! As of right now the two Wildcard spots belong to Toronto and Detroit. The Blue Jays have a one game lead over Detroit for the top wildcard spot. After the Tigers we have Baltimore just a half game back, Houston 1½ out, Seattle 2 games back, the NY Yankees 3 down and Kansas City 5½ out. Without a doubt this race will go down to the final weekend. So let’s take a look at what each of the teams have to go.

Not only are things tight in the American League but there are plenty of the contenders playing each other down the stretch. Of the 7 teams still in the hunt, they all have at least 1 series against another contender with Toronto, Baltimore, and the Yankees having series versus the other two. Baltimore has the best home record of the Wildcard contenders but only have 3 homes games left. Baltimore only has those 3 home games compared to the other 3 top teams, Toronto & Detroit, who have 7 and Houston, who has 6.

So once we make it to the playoffs, who are the teams favored to win it all? Lets take a look at the odds for each of the favorites to win the World Series.

So how do you see the rest of the regular season play out? How do you see the playoffs going? We would love to hear your opinions. Make sure you get all of our baseball action to finish the regular season and all the way to the World Series and don’t miss any of the RED HOT Football action (8 straight Football Guaranteed Winners heading into Friday! Get all of our winning action by purchasing our plays on Freeplays.com, by clicking on Razor Sharp Sports. Plus get free daily winners online there too. Good Luck.

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Tom Hatfield of Razor Sharp Sports has been a top sports handicapper and has been seen and heard on national sports radio & TV shows since 1993. He has taken his knowledge of sports, combined with technology to give him the added advantage to be the sharpest handicapper in the country. Razor Sharp Sports has become the most educated sports service in the country, offering free football picks, free basketball picks, and free baseball picks all year long. Tom has hosted and appeared on the FreePlays.com Radio Show. He hosts the Fantasy King Sports Hour and has also appeared on the Pro Line Sports Show on the USA Network.